Articles Under: Leadership & Catechist Formation

Teachers, administrators, and others working in Catholic schools are devoted to their students. They want what is best for them. This is why they will want to increase the variety and level of support offered to parents. Doing so will not only help mothers and fathers fulfill their responsibilities to their children but also help the school fulfill its own obligations—both to those whom they serve directly and to the Church and her mission. The Church consistently affirms the importance of the family. In Lumen Gentium , Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, we are told that “the family... Read more

When I was a youth minister, I felt pretty comfortable discussing most topics with my students. I loved the long drives to camp when they’d share their playlists. I loved eating pizza and learning how to set up a MySpace account (I’m a dinosaur). I felt proud that I could even talk about some of the really tough stuff with ease, answering their questions about sex and dating without skipping a beat. Over the years, however, I found myself feeling lost navigating the really hard stuff. Family violence, addiction, suicide, sexual abuse. I could listen, pray, and encourage students and... Read more

“He’s just too small,” sobbed a woman we had just met. It was a sunny summer day, and the pastor, transitional deacon, and I were out knocking on doors within our parish boundaries. This woman’s door was within eyesight of the rectory, and it happened to be the first one we had visited. The conversation had started off just as awkwardly as one would imagine. She answered the door hesitantly, but smiled as we introduced ourselves. She was a parishioner and relaxed when she saw the pastor standing at the back of our group. We explained that we were out... Read more

Many moons ago, when I was a young social work student in North Dakota, I was required to take a course called “Indian Studies.” One of the books for the course was titled Black Elk Speaks . It was the moving account of the experience of the life of indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of the white European settlers, as seen through the eyes of a Lakota elder named Nicholas Black Elk. John Neihardt, the man who penned the book in the early 1930s, had a sense of the urgent need to preserve a record of what native life... Read more